“Have you got a heart…..do you have a soul…..what about your life…..is it out of control….are you alone and aching…..you don’t know what to do…..well, I’ve got a Friend for you.”  Just sitting here on the front porch of the old farm house thinking about the words of that song that I wrote some time ago.  Not thinking of it as a song, so much, as a condition of so many people.  It’s easy to enjoy a peaceful existence, sitting here of a morning, birds singing to me a beautiful lullaby, two hummingbirds feeding at the feeder Denise keeps full and hanging on the eave of the house, my old dog, Buck The Collie, sleeping at my feet after a night of being on duty to keep the deer out of the garden.   Living in the country, like we do, with the creek chuckling along just down the hill from the porch, is a wonderful blessed life, and I never take it for granted.  I believe that a thankful heart is the least we can offer to such a loving God.

It’s good to be home again.  In the past three and a half weeks, Denise and I have driven over 3,500 miles and visited with lots of folks along the way.  There are lots of people hurting right now.  People searching for answers, out of work from doing what they have been doing most all their lives, giving of themselves in work only to find their workplace closed, or suddenly being diagnosed with a disease that the very name is enough to chill the blood, or having one of the kids suddenly in trouble and you just don’t know where to turn. It lays on my heart, heavy this morning.

What in the world would I do if I didn’t have a personal relationship with God.  Who do you turn to, if not Him?   How can you search for answers without going to the Creator of it all?

 So, the birds go on singing, the hummingbirds hum, the woodpeckers keep the beat, the wind in the trees rustles the leaves in perfect harmony and the world wakes up with new optimism every morning.  How then, can I do anything else but join nature’s chorus of Praise for the hope of the new day?   When the choices are down or up…..up wins out everytime.  Boy, that Robin was really singing loud this morning.  Reckon he knew I needed a lift.

I slip on a fresh laundered pair of jeans, pull on my old Tony Lama’s  that have been rebuilt about four times in the past 30 years, stick my head in my favorite t-shirt that says “Stark’s Sports World” Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, although it’s been washed so many times you can hardly read it, and head out to my old ’57 Chevy pickup.  It’s 90 degrees already, but with the windows down, the vents wide open, and getting up to racing speed of 50 miles per hour….shoot, it don’t feel a degree over 88.  Yessir, there’s a lot of trouble in this old world but it don’t do no good to let it whup you.  When it get’s rough, just keep on truckin’.   stan